Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud (Group 1)

LAST Sunday’s Group 1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud proved again what a wonderful horse Dubai Honour is, his talent and toughness maximised to its full potential by his trainer, that canny Yorkshireman William Haggas.

A number of people, myself included, had begun to feel that, at the age of six, this gelding may be beginning to lose his zest, particularly after he could manage only third in the Group 2 Grand Prix de Chantilly at the start of June.

But neither Haggas nor his jockey, Tom Marquand, had lost faith in the old boy. The slow start and general sluggishness of the front-running Outbox meant that the early gallop was not strong enough to put much emphasis on his slightly suspect stamina at a mile and four furlongs, and Marquand was seen at his best, squeezing through a narrow gap between the backpedalling Outbox and Aidan O’Brien’s Point Lonsdale passing the two furlong marker.

Burst of speed

Thereafter, Dubai Honour found a better burst of speed than either Feed The Flame or the Irish challenger to beat them by a length and three-quarters and a neck.

Both Iresine, who appears to need to be dropped right out regardless of the pace set-up, and Zarir sat too far out of their ground to give them much chance of getting competitive, and finished fourth and fifth respectively, while Sevenna’s Knight ran no kind of race in sixth.

Dubai Honour’s race record is unusual. He has won just three of his 14 starts at home in Britain, and nothing more prestigious than the all-weather listed race that Haggas used to kick off his 2024 campaign on April Fool’s Day.

Abroad it has been a different story, notching five wins from 10 starts, which have included three money-spinning trips to Hong Kong, three French victories in Group 1 or Group 2 company, and a pair of triumphant starts in Sydney.

A son of the successful Australian stallion Pride Of Dubai, who shuttled to Coolmore for three years but now stays down under and is another product of the same brilliant bloodline responsible for those excellent sires Invincible Spirit and Kodiac, Dubai Honour has now exceeded €4 million in career prize money with the promise of a fair bit more to come.

Sent off at 7.3/1, the outsider but one in this seven-strong field, Marquand admitted that he was almost affronted by that price beforehand, and said: “Dubai Honour really is a fast horse, he can be electric, and he probably still just needed the run at Chantilly, where the sticky surface made it difficult to make up ground.”

Chase the money

Maureen Haggas, representing her husband, added: “He’s an absolute star and we’d like to have 10 more like him. You have to chase the money with this type of horse and he could end up returning to Hong Kong at the end of the year.”

His stablemate, Grey Charger, finished a well-beaten sixth 90 minutes later as the Andre Fabre-trained Bright Picture, a gelded son of Intello, made it four wins from his five lifetime outings when beating Wootton Verni by a length and a quarter to win the Group 2 Prix Eugene Adam.

That solitary defeat came at the hands of the runaway Royal Ascot winner Calandagan, and Bright Picture’s next start could be in the valuable Group 2 Prix Guillaume d’Ornano at Deauville on August 16th.